I've got a lot of writing to do today. I was exhausted yesterday after our first day in Georgia and skipped my blog, so now I have to write two days worth of adventures. So here goes.
After my second crappy China Southern flight, I made it to Tbilisi and was immediately put in a better mood by the nonexistent lines at immigration, the signs everywhere which say "Tbilisi Loves You" or "Tbilisi, the city that loves you", and of course getting to see my friends. I'm here with my friend Rei to visit our friends Marc and Veronica, all of whom are friends from Beijing days. Marc and Veronica live here with there two kids because Veronica works for USAID and this is her current placement. And Rei and I have made it a habit (which will continue) of visiting them wherever in the world they find themselves. Maybe even twice in some places, since they are now on to the 4 year placements. So yeah, they're living in Tbilisi for 4 years, of which 1 is already finished.
It was pretty chill when we got in, because it was quite late, the kids were already asleep, and they are parents to a 1 and 3 year old, so they keep early hours. Having said that, they stayed up and entertained Rei and I until like 11, so good on them. The next morning, our first real day in Georgia, we were supposed to start with brunch and a nice walk through old town. All was going well with brunch, and we had started our walk through old town by heading towards the old sulfur baths. I was carrying Julian, the 1 year old, which was nice since it was the first time he let me near him, while Milo, the 3 year old, was off climbing around on the baths with Rei (they're easy to climb on. Please see exhibit A below).
So Milo was climbing around, Rei was climbing around, I was carrying Milo, we were all chatting - really it was lovely. Then we moved away from the baths and down the road a bit, heading towards a small waterfall. Since there were no baths to climb on, Milo decided to climb on and jump off of rocks. At which point he landed in dog poop. And what better to do with do poop then rub it on Michael Minsky? Which is exactly what he did. Lots of it. All over my jeans and shirt. Honestly, I could not stop laughing. I found it hilarious. Here I was carrying a 1 year old, covered in poop from a 3 year old, with his parents rushing over and using baby wipes to try and clean me off. I felt a bit bad because Marc and Veronica were scolding Milo and teaching him it was wrong, and I could not stop laughing. It was obviously gross, but also the funniest thing ever. I couldn't help myself. So pretty quickly we went home, I got changed, then Rei and I came back into town with just Marc, while Veronica stayed home with the kids.
Once back in town, we took a great walking tour through old town, hitting up some of the famous sites like Freedom Square and the statue of Mother Georgia, giving us great panoramic views of the city. As I have a lot to write today, I won't write too much about Tbilisi itself, cause I'll be back next weekend and can elaborate on it then. But it was very nice. That took us a few hours, then it was home to finish up the sukkah Marc had started building, and then have dinner in the sukkah to celebrate Sukkot. It was a really lovely evening, and a really lovely day (even the poop part, didn't ruin it at all).
And since it's now Monday and our friends have to work, Rei and I rented a car and got out of town. We're working our way west to the Black Sea, and then we'll head up north into the mountains. Today we drove to Vardzia, a 12th century holy city built into caves carved in the mountainside. There seem to be caves carved into mountainsides all over this country (or at least this part of the country) but Vardzia is the largest and most famous. Apparently they have like 191 dwellings and 30-some churches and 20-some wine cellars just in this one complex, all carved into the mountains, and covering a height of 13 storeys. It's pretty nuts. So after a beautiful drive through this river valley, we got to Vardzia and spent about an hour climbing around in the caves. It was pretty sweet. That was our main stop for the day, really. We did make a couple photo stops on the way to Vardzia, plus a lunch break with these lovely old Georgian women who we could not communicate with but who fed us wonderful food in a shack on the riverside, but really Vardzia was the only actual activity of the day.
And now we're in Akhaltsike, a city near Vardzia where we're spending the night. It's not a very exciting place, but it's got this gorgeous old town up on a hill (which we have a view of from our hotel. Our hotel which is super cute. It's a family run place called Hotel Almi, which is named after the owners two sons, Alexander and Michael. They're all super sweet and friendly). We walked over to the old town to see it at night and it did not disappoint. We'll probably go back in the morning cause there's more to see, and we also want to see it during the day. It's pretty close to our hotel, only about a 10 min walk, the return part of which we picked up a stray dog who was really cute and really friendly and decided to follow us practically all the way home. We named him kikhali (it's a local dumpling which we have yet to eat, but are very excited about) and decided that if he made it back all the way we'd feed him and kidnap him. But he didn't. He did make us happy for the walk, though. So those are days 1 and 2 in a little bit more than a nutshell. Now for music.
I already wrote at on so I'll make this short. Today is Glen Hansard. I really hope you know him already. He was the guy in Once, which if you haven't seen, you really should. Great film, and great music in the film. Also great study in how to make a musical that isn't completely over-the-top and unbelievable in its musical numbers. He is a real musician as well, not just in films. In fact, he's actually a musician who just happened to be in a film, not an acDidn't He Ramble, and today is probably my favorite song off that album, Just to be the One. Very chilled out song, actually quite different in the instrumentation from a lot of his songs which are more straightforward singer-songwriter type songs. But that instrumentation and those horns are what I love about this song.
tor who happens to make music. And he makes very good must. He just put out his new album,
After my second crappy China Southern flight, I made it to Tbilisi and was immediately put in a better mood by the nonexistent lines at immigration, the signs everywhere which say "Tbilisi Loves You" or "Tbilisi, the city that loves you", and of course getting to see my friends. I'm here with my friend Rei to visit our friends Marc and Veronica, all of whom are friends from Beijing days. Marc and Veronica live here with there two kids because Veronica works for USAID and this is her current placement. And Rei and I have made it a habit (which will continue) of visiting them wherever in the world they find themselves. Maybe even twice in some places, since they are now on to the 4 year placements. So yeah, they're living in Tbilisi for 4 years, of which 1 is already finished.
It was pretty chill when we got in, because it was quite late, the kids were already asleep, and they are parents to a 1 and 3 year old, so they keep early hours. Having said that, they stayed up and entertained Rei and I until like 11, so good on them. The next morning, our first real day in Georgia, we were supposed to start with brunch and a nice walk through old town. All was going well with brunch, and we had started our walk through old town by heading towards the old sulfur baths. I was carrying Julian, the 1 year old, which was nice since it was the first time he let me near him, while Milo, the 3 year old, was off climbing around on the baths with Rei (they're easy to climb on. Please see exhibit A below).
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| Exhibit A: climbing around on the sulfur baths |
Once back in town, we took a great walking tour through old town, hitting up some of the famous sites like Freedom Square and the statue of Mother Georgia, giving us great panoramic views of the city. As I have a lot to write today, I won't write too much about Tbilisi itself, cause I'll be back next weekend and can elaborate on it then. But it was very nice. That took us a few hours, then it was home to finish up the sukkah Marc had started building, and then have dinner in the sukkah to celebrate Sukkot. It was a really lovely evening, and a really lovely day (even the poop part, didn't ruin it at all).
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| Tbilisi |
And now we're in Akhaltsike, a city near Vardzia where we're spending the night. It's not a very exciting place, but it's got this gorgeous old town up on a hill (which we have a view of from our hotel. Our hotel which is super cute. It's a family run place called Hotel Almi, which is named after the owners two sons, Alexander and Michael. They're all super sweet and friendly). We walked over to the old town to see it at night and it did not disappoint. We'll probably go back in the morning cause there's more to see, and we also want to see it during the day. It's pretty close to our hotel, only about a 10 min walk, the return part of which we picked up a stray dog who was really cute and really friendly and decided to follow us practically all the way home. We named him kikhali (it's a local dumpling which we have yet to eat, but are very excited about) and decided that if he made it back all the way we'd feed him and kidnap him. But he didn't. He did make us happy for the walk, though. So those are days 1 and 2 in a little bit more than a nutshell. Now for music.
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| Climbing around in Vardzia |
tor who happens to make music. And he makes very good must. He just put out his new album,
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